


Bound to Change

by Myzic



Series: Whumptober 2020 [1]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapped, Not Beta Read, Season/Series 02, Suicidal Ideation, Whump, Whumptober 2020, alright so peter isnt actually in this, as in none, but god does juno think about him a lot, there is also not a lot of comfort in this, there is no sex stuff in this despite how my summary might sound, we die like hyperion mayors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:21:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26820568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myzic/pseuds/Myzic
Summary: There’s something resting on his back, oddly smooth and round from what he can tell without the thick layer of his coat on his back. Juno goes to push himself up, but his arms strain against each other. Handcuffs. Which is fine if he can just reach his plasma cutter... Except for the fact that these are not standard issue handcuffs and his coat is gone.No, his captors had shackled him in some weird-ass ball cuffs that bound his hands together against his back. Judging by the soreness of his nose and cheek, they hadn’t been too gentle throwing him wherever this was. Something he had yet to figure out because it was too damn dark to make out a thing.
Series: Whumptober 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1956226
Comments: 6
Kudos: 37





	Bound to Change

He wakes up with his cheek pressed to the cool floor. It’s uncomfortable, and he knows he’ll have a crick in his neck when he gets up. Which he will. In one second. He just needs a moment. Why had Nureyev let him fall asleep this way? As soon as the thought flickers across his mind, so too does the guilt.

Judging from Nureyev’s screams in the past few days, he probably isn’t in any shape to do much more than collapse on their cozy little cave floor, nevermind mother Juno.

“Nureyev?” he whispers, the ground gritty and cold against the corner of his mouth. Where is he? Juno realizes he can’t hear the soft huffing of pained breaths anywhere near him, none of the slight inhales that had filled their brief moments of reprieve. He breathes like that even in his sleep, lightly like he can feel the pain of fresh fractal esque scars in his dreams. Fear zips through Juno, all adrenaline and nerves that Nureyev won’t be there when he opens his eyes. He crushes that half-formed thought before it can make itself fully known.

Juno’s eyes fly open and he finds cement against his face instead of stone. He shifts uncomfortably on the floor.

That’s right. Nureyev wasn’t there anyway, he was long gone and Juno was here, on the floor of an unknown location. A different kidnapping. Now he had two, great. If getting kidnapped was on his bucket list he would’ve been able to cross it off twice. Once he was out of here he could compare hospitality reviews. Zero out of five- needs less torture.

He should have known the moment he woke up. In the tomb, there’d been nothing but the scent of dust and sweat in their little room, iron and blood turning their stomachs when the sand wasn’t filling their lungs with each choked breath. Here, it smells like marinating trash, the smell of acid rain combining with its stench to fill the air with two-week-old melted fast food.

So, he was still in Hyperion, not that he thought they would ship him off-Mars.

Juno curses the guys that’d hauled him here. He’d been on a stakeout, tucked away around the street where they wouldn’t be able to see him, or at least they shouldn’t have. It wouldn’t have hurt Ramses to mention their secret man cave.

There’s something resting on his back, oddly smooth and round from what he can tell without the thick layer of his coat on his back. Juno goes to push himself up, but his arms strain against each other. Handcuffs. Which is fine if he can just reach his plasma cutter... Except for the fact that these are not standard issue handcuffs and his coat is gone.

No, his captors had shackled him in some weird-ass ball cuffs that bound his hands together against his back. Judging by the soreness of his nose and cheek, they hadn’t been too gentle throwing him wherever this was. Something he has yet to figure out because it’s too damn dark to make out a thing.

A familiar voice echoes in his brain, comforting against his better judgement.

“ _Night vision mode suggested._ ” the THEIA spectrum tells him, which yeah actually might be a little useful right about now.

“Let’s see it, THEIA,” Juno grunts against the floor, pushing his forehead against the hard surface roughly as he gathers his knees under him and uses his head to stand up at last. His back is sore and he puffs up his chest to rid himself of some of the aches.

The room lights up in electric blue through his right eye and he can suddenly see the sparse accommodations he’s been given outlined in skeletons of bright plasma. Accommodations that include four concrete walls, one sturdy metal bed, and a nice big steel door blocking his exit. Juno doesn’t see a window, so he has no way of knowing how long he’d been unconscious for and he grimaces at the idea.

His neck aches and he rolls his head quickly, wincing at the sharp crack in his neck that briefly stings. Still, it was something. Better than sitting in the dark, blindly gauging his surroundings without even his hands to help. At least he can see.

Right now he’s at his peak. Actions and movement came easy with the THEIA, let him move in a way he hadn’t been able to since he was twenty, make decisions automatically. The moment he decided to give chase, he was off without the limits of human exhaustion to hold him back. New and improved Super Steel 2.0.

What if he’d had the THEIA in that Martian tomb? It made him deadlier, faster, a better sharpshooter than he’d ever been. It made him better.

Nureyev hadn’t deserved the weeks of malnutrition, the shocks of arcing electricity every time Juno had been too stupid, too slow to give Miasma what she wanted. His screams had been ragged, voice tearing with pain after biting down on his torn lip wasn’t enough. If Juno could’ve spared him just one of those scars, maybe he’d be less of a fucking screw-up.

And what? What would he have done? Would having a better, fancier eye let him kill Miasma? Escape, guns blazing like some kind of goddamn hero?

~~Leave Mars?~~

No. He wouldn’t have been able to do anything, the same way he’s unable to do jack shit right now, fancy eye and all. The THEIA spectrum doesn’t make him better, it just prolongs his sorry existence as a miserable stain on the surface of the planet. Juno Steel, useless as ever, no matter how you dress him up, he won’t take the hint, do the universe a favour, and roll into a shallow grave already.

The door is solid, more than a few inches thick given the solid pain in his foot after he kicks it in frustration. He hobbles back pathetically, springs in the bed squealing as he sits down hard on it. The bed is flimsy, cheap fabric that’s probably still nicer than the one he has in his own apartment. Luxury fittings, they were pulling out all the stops for the VIP.

Juno rests his back against the wall and tries not to think of leaning against another warm body in a similarly cold room. I think some dependency is called for in this situation, Juno— a soft voice despite the lingering ache of exhaustion in them both.

For a moment it’s just him and the sound of his breaths filling the empty room and he has to work not to strain his ears for the sound of agonized shouts down the halls. Like Nureyev is somewhere around the corners of this place, like Miasma has him strapped to her machines again and the only reason Juno can her himself breathing is that there’s no one else there to fill the silence.

But there’s nothing except ghosts here, walking the halls because he put them there in the first place.

So, Juno focuses on the sound of his own breathing and tries not to strain his ears for things that aren’t there.

“ _May I suggest a course of action, user: Juno Steel?_ ” The THEIA says, and he wants to tell it no, that he can rot in this room for the rest of eternity. “ _We are going to do good, user: Juno Steel. Recommended course of action loading._ ” An image of himself fills his vision, a hologram Juno beneath the bed on his front. The image of his projected action is brutal.

Well, he could keep sitting here, let the gang do what they want with him whenever they come back.

Or he can smash his wrists trying to escape. On his front, Juno finds his scraped cheek is raw against the dirty floor, arms held awkwardly to the side of his body as he strains to lift the bed frame with his legs out behind him.

He can’t even see the lifted steel leg of the bed properly with his cheek turned to the side so he can properly twist his shackled hands away from the side of his body. What he can see is the steel frame of the bed, reinforced, heavy, and fully capable of smashing his wrists into splinters of bone if he misses the big metal ball binding his hands. Juno pushes the bedframe a little higher with his legs which are beginning to shake under the weight. Right now, it’s the only plan he’s got, which makes it better than nothing.

“Boss!” A familiar voice comes from outside the door and Juno almost drops the steel bed frame on himself anyway. Instead, he carefully moves his bound hands to his back, sets down the bed frame, and wriggles his way out from underneath it. Thank god the door didn’t have a window, Rita’d have blackmail material for life.

“Mistah Steel, are you okay! Wait, he can’t hear you, Rita. Right, I’m usin’ one of their speakers to talk to ya! No microphones there, boss, gotta work with what you have, amiright?” He tries not to think about how he was about to smash his arms with the steel bed frame and focuses on the tinny sound of the speaker outside his door.

“No, focus, Rita! Mistah Steel, I’ve unlocked your door so you better start running because this place don’t have cameras either and I dunno where those guys are right now, but they can probably hear me!”

“Dammit, Rita, you couldn’t have started with that!” Juno yells at the empty air, kicking open the thick door with a satisfying thud as it slams against the wall outside his little cell.

He emerges to find a hallway, doors similar to his own lining the walls, and a table next to his room, a black speaker atop it.

He doesn’t recognize the building, but Juno does recognize what an imminent beating looks like on someone’s face. Specifically, the face of the woman running towards him at breakneck speeds. She’s one of the gang members he’d been following, and her expression does not promise fun times.

He doesn’t have a plan, his hands are effectively useless, so what’s he going to do, karate kick her head? Juno strains uselessly against his cuffs for a second he doesn’t have and she gets closer very quickly.

“ _Survival protocol engaged._ ”

The next moment, an ugly tearing sound rips through his body followed by burning pain in his shoulders and arms. The black metal ball lodges itself solidly in her face, and then she’s sprawled out in front of him, out cold.

“Fuck, fuck.” It hurts like a son of a bitch, and his arms have definitely torn a few muscles there. His arms have gone from behind his back to in front of him and he is nowhere near limber enough to pull that shit off. Maybe Ben, but not—.

He breathes hard for a second, gulping in the pain before moving on.

Juno starts running in the direction she came from. There still weren’t any goddamn windows and he had no clue where he was going. The pain made his steps heavy on the ground and the sound of Rita’s exclamations about his safety continues to play on the stereo.

Juno leaves it behind. With any luck, the people looking for him will go after the thing instead of his too-loud footsteps.

He doesn’t see his jacket, but he can’t spend time poking around for it, no matter how much he wants the familiar buzz of his plasma cutter in his hands. Not that he’d be able to hold it. Juno thinks of a yellowed piece of paper, creases fraying in a way that speaks of it being folded and unfolded over and over. A letter he kept in his pocket every day, no matter if the scent of cologne had long since faded. He curses having brought it with him now.

It’s nowhere he can immediately see and Juno can’t spend time exploring the place when it’s crawling with who-knows-how-many goons.

Something in him is furious and spitting fire at having to leave it behind. Hot and ugly, masses of scar tissue burning inside his chest. For a second he feels more upset than he has at anything this place has thrown at him.

It drains away quickly, hollowing him out. He has no right to feel that way. No right to even keep the thing after… After. Despite that, Juno won’t leave it behind, he rejects the thought too quickly to even fully consider it. He’ll come back later, he swears to himself.

Juno runs into a young guy, flat-footed sneakers slapping flat on the concrete ground. He has a blaster in hand but holds it with the grip of someone whose never had to fire in a fight.

He’s in a side hallway, and Juno catches him in the back with his new bludgeon. The guy drops his blaster and Juno keeps him down with a foot, arms poised over his head despite the protests of his absolutely, very torn muscles.

“Where’s the exit?” He demands, he can see the guy’s shoulders shaking beneath his grey jacket. The threat of bludgeoning seems to be working wonders on his compliancy. Maybe he’ll keep the thing once it’s no longer restraining his hands, make a nice vase or something for the apartment.

“One right up ahead, and then left,” Juno takes a moment to decide whether he’s lying. “There’ll be a door,” he adds unnecessarily, muffled against the floor like this crucial information will buy him some mercy. It will not.

“Right, thanks.” Juno brings down the metal ball on his head and the guy goes limp, but he finds no satisfaction in knocking this one unconscious. He steps over the slumped form and towards what was hopefully the exit. Today was over, he had just decided.

The universe seems to agree because with another right and left turn, Juno finds himself outside the building in a very wet alley. There’s daylight, so he’s either been in there a couple of hours or two full turns of a clock. Given the emptiness his stomach has now decided he should know about right this second, it was the latter.

His feet move quickly at first, putting as much distance between himself and the base, but he slowly begins to walk, dodging the occasional acidic puddle on the cracked sidewalks.

Juno thinks of the last time he’d escaped his captors, the exhausted drive through miles of open desert and one less eye. Peter at his side, warm. He’d fucked that one up.

At least, there wasn’t anyone with him to fuck up this time.

He trudges towards Hyperion General again. And he doesn’t feel the echo of a thin arm, a phantom warmth settling under his shoulders and supporting his weight as he walks.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, first time I've written fanfic since I was 12!  
> Constructive criticism is welcome as well as possible grammar mistakes. I've read over this thing like 5 times but it is unbeta'd and I genuinely cannot tell if it's any good!
> 
> If you want to come scream at me my Tumblr is @themagicmistress


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